If you’ve spent any time at all on the spanking internets, you’ll find that the boards, forums, blogs, chatrooms, and so forth have a population that includes a hefty percentage of lonely and frustrated people. That seems sad, but it’s not. In fact, it’s smart. As I wrote years ago, participating in an online community is the best way to find spanking love (this was written for guys, but it works even better for the ladies):

My advice to spanking lovelorn guys: there are a startling number of women out there who want to be spanked and say they can’t find a man to do the job. The thing is, most of them aren’t going to want to meet you right away — that’s just too dangerous and freaky. So go and find yourself an online spanking community based around a bulletin board system and participate on the boards. Be yourself, be fun and funny if you can pull it off, and above all, be honest about who you are. Keep at it (we are talking months, here) and before you know it, women who now know you and like you will start sending you friendly emails and IMs on totally innocuous subjects. What you do then is left as an exercise for the student. Trust me, you’ll be harvested.

I speak from (happy) experience here.

I was reminded of this by Mija’s recent post on The Punishment Book: 10 Years Ago Today On alt. sex.spanking. Mija’s known to the spanking community for her years of participation on a.s.s, for her spanking stories (many of which can be found collected at Pablo & Mija’s Treehouse), and of course for her blogging at The Punishment Book. Now she writes what to me is a heartwarming tale of how she found love and spankings (but I repeat myself) on the internet:

10 Years Ago Today on alt.sex.spanking I delurked with a story and a very few details about myself, given the name Mija by Bea, who, at the time, was a regular poster. Usenet was very mysterious to me, as Ron McIngle discovered to his pain as he tried to explain to me where I was and how I got there. I didn’t have web access — I’d found alt.sex.spanking via crosspostings from a Los Angeles personals newsgroup. The spam was very heavy — probably at least 95% of the group’s content at the time. But the community, in the midst of planning the creation of this group, shone through. That it existed at all seemed more amazing then I could bear.

At the time I was 29, in the middle of the first year of my MA program and floundering in an unhappy marriage that had taken my 20s and left me feeling far older than I was. My (now) ex husband saw my interest in spanking as “outside any idea” he could have about me. I’d buried my desires deep, only to have them reappear, triggered by writings of feminist Dorothy Allison.

ASS/SSS gave me another world and life to be part of, a place where I could write and post the fantasies that had made up my inner life for years. Tasha, who at the time had bravely moved in with the man who would be her Daddy for a number of years, and others here inspired me to imagine that my life could be better — that I could give myself a chance to find someone who could love me and find my interest in spanking something other than a sign of pathology. Further, through SSS, I was able to meet other women who had similar feelings about spanking and could see that I wasn’t strange — or at least wasn’t alone in craving both play and pleasure and punishment. To the other women who write on the Punishment Book, many thanks to you too for all the love and acceptance you’ve given me.

Less than 10 days after I posted my delurk, Pablo and I exchanged the first of what would become more emails then I can count. When I had to go off-line that summer in order to get out of my marriage, he started a ritual of calling me nightly at midnight, despite his living 6000 miles away. Those days he seemed like the only person in the world who knew and cared for me. On my birthday that summer it seemed appropriate that he was the only person (including my family who lived in the same city) to manage to get me a present on the actual day. Over time I came to realize that he was my soulmate — one of a kind and meant for me. He understood and accepted that for me spanking was both the heart and soul of my sexuality and something that I needed and wanted to express real aspects of discipline and punishment. 10 years later and we’ve been married over two years.

My life is happier now than I even could have imagined then. I owe more to this community then I can express. It’s hard to know what to write. My best friends, parties, playmates, scenes and loves have come from here. This place and you people have given me more than I could ever hope to return.

This summer I’ll turn 40. I’m in the final year (or so) of my doctoral program. My 30s have been the most wonderful time of my life and I feel so fortunate to have found ASS/SSS, the scene and all that has come from those discoveries.

It’s not a new story — I’m sure my regular readers could chime in with a dozen more like it — but I like it because it’s the story that works. If — like a great many of my regular readers — you’re sitting somewhere alone (or at least, unloved) and kinky and frustrated, this is the best template I’m aware of for fixing that. It requires patience (if you’re a guy, it takes a lot more than ten days) and decent writing skills (enough to convey your basic decency and sense of fun in prose, consistently and over time) and not a hell of a lot more.

Wow, I’ve definitely been away from kinky writing too long — I had no idea this had gone up here, though I should have noticed the jump in the stats ::blush::. It’s not been without some bumps, but the past decade (dear lord that sounds like a long time) has been amazing fun.

I’ve been really really fortunate most definitely. But I also believe in the idea that we make our own luck. In order to have good things happen to us, we need to have ourselves in a position where they can actually happen. It’s made me thrilled for you and Bethie too!

Thanks for blogging this. I worried it was a little too sentimental. But then again, so am I. :b